Accreditation and Government Are the Enemies of Innovation

February 22, 2011, 5:56 pm

I have long criticized traditional higher education for being relatively non-innovative, largely because of subsidies and inadequate incentives not adequately facing the “creative destruction” (Joseph Schumpeter’s term) or “disruptive innovation” (Clayton Christensen’s expression) characterizing dynamic competitive free market capitalism. For-profit higher-education entrepreneurs rightly bristle at the harassment they face from accreditors and government regulators. Five examples below make the case, three pointed out to me by Burck Smith, the innovative head of StraighterLine, and two by Dr. Dick Bishirjian, president of Yorktown University, an online provider.

StraighterLine and others offer low-cost courses online using top-flight class materials, but do not offer degrees. Because of this, they cannot be accredited, so often other institutions will not accept these courses as transfer credit. Low-cost providers of instructional services, often serving low-income students, are discriminated against because they do not offer degrees, and the accreditation associations are controlled by degree-granting institutions, a clear conflict of interest that creates a barrier to access and cost-cutting innovation;
StraighterLine, and no doubt other similar providers, are not generally eligible for participation in government-funded workplace-training programs. As one bureaucrat told Mr. Smith, “You’re offering specific general education courses, which do not lead to a formal award from your business or provide specific gainful employment skills or competencies, thus are not eligible for inclusion on the WIA MD State List of Occupational Training.” The bias against for-profit institutions is compounded by the perspective that workplace training must exclude general-education courses or, I suspect, certain non-vocationally-oriented majors;
The U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) supposedly funds innovative projects, but proprietary institutions or firms like Smith’s almost certainly will not be funded given the Obama Administration’s dislike of private enterprise;
Most famously, of course, the “gainful employment” rules that the Department of Education wants to enact by accident or design will stunt the for-profit industry’s growth, leaving traditional providers that have massive dropout rates and probably dubious employment successes for their graduates unscathed (although the recent lopsided House vote to forbid these rules should give the regulators some pause);
The absolutely inane requirement that online providers get separate state authorization in each state where they teach students threatens to stifle competition in the potentially most promising way to deliver higher education services at lower prices.

On the issue of the alleged deficiencies of for-profit providers in providing job opportunities, my ever-valuable side kick Chris Matgouranis gathered data from PayScale.com on the average earnings of graduates of the largest for-profit provider, the University of Phoenix, and compared it with the average earnings of dozens of colleges in the “competitive” category of schools in the Barron’s Profile of American Colleges—mainly mid-quality state and private universities and liberal-arts colleges. The graph is below:

The results show that at various post-degree stages of life, the University of Phoenix graduates on average had earnings that compared favorably with their counterparts at traditional universities. This is not the last word on that topic, of course, and the social and demographic characteristics of the students attending these institutions vary, impacting the results in some indeterminate way. But the notion that there is a “gainful employment” problem with the for-profits that is non-existent in traditional higher education is simply wrong.

With all of this in mind, I note that the Democratic Caucus is becoming increasingly split on this issue, not walking lockstep with the Administration with all of its ideological bias against for-profit business enterprise. The February 22 Rasmussen daily tracking poll gave the President the lowest percent of respondents who “strongly approved” of his performance at any time during his presidency, a point not lost on large numbers of Democrats up for reelection in 2012. The War Against the For-Profits is not going too well for the aggressors, the Obama Administration.

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cdanm3

While agree with the overall tenor of the editorial, the use of over-the-top generalizations such as, “the Administration with all of its ideological bias against for-profit business enterprise,” is alienating without being enlightening. As a small business owner, I was aided by the priorities of the present Administration. So please, be careful in language. The issue of for-profit education will not have many informed allies if we build a perspective from overgeneralizations of the opposing views.
ccenglishprof

repesek1953:

I agree that we should ask the same questions of the administration. But as someone who also learned the hard way we also have to try to figure out ways to ask such questions of the faculty beyond those we meet during the interview/pre-hiring process.

I took a tenure-track job at a college where the administration was quite honorable (and the most efficient administration I have ever seen). However, the “faculty culture” (for lack of a better term) was appalling. It was defined by rampant a lack of ethics in interpersonal and intra-departmental dealings, a widespread fear of open discussion and debate (especially related to institutional practices and priorities), and rampant intimidation and bullying. Unfortunately, there really wasn’t any way to suss this out without being there for a while. A hard lesson to learn indeed.
12070551

So worried for those women who would rather associate with shame then happiness. I think it says more about someone who prefers that emotion then the presumption of happiness!
shushufindi

I wouldn’t advise men to play psychological games to attract women. Just be yourself. When a woman is interested in you she will let you know.
http://whytheology.wordpress.com/ Trey Medley

I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but when I mentioned this to my wife she responded “Well of course. Most women I know like a ‘project’ and like to think they are the only ones who can make some otherwise brooding guy happy.” So there you go, at least one woman’s opinion that the difference in gender preference may be due (sometimes) to a need for accomplishment and/or perceived need/ability.
greendolphin

“Brooding” and “Shame” are two different things. Expressions of shame could hardly be attractive to either sex. But a “brooding” persona perhaps implies some depth of feeling and perception, a creative restlessness, a drive to escape the mundane – which many women find attractive. The fact that males find a “happy” woman most attractive is not surprising – in our still male-centered culture, men expect women to complement and facilitate their own striving, and a “happy” woman is likely to require less “maintenance” than a brooding woman, and less likely to present competition than a “proud” woman.
agrudjr

I just read a review of a recent book on big time college sports that indicated the first intercollegiate contest was a crew race between Harvard and Yale sponsored by an industrialist, around 1852. Sorry for the vague details…the review was in Teachers College Record I think. College athletics has really never had an ancient Greek gymnasium ideal.
Socratease2

Interesting ideas….nice to finally see someone with an original idea outside of “just pay them already” or “athletes are not real students, what a sham.” The reality of what athletics is in connection with education is rarely ever considered. Those who critique athletics have points but so do those who see the tangible benefits of the education received through sports. I was a student-athlete (in a non-revenue sport) and I truly believe that some of the few positive character traits I have came as a result of what I learned through athletics. Personal growth and development do not happen solely during course lectures in Sociology 101, not sure why a more holistic approach to the understanding of “higher education” is so difficult for many to process. What I see mostly in these forums is a lot of regurgitated, unreflective and uninformed cliches posing as ideas. So, while eajmtp2′s idea of turning coaches into faculty seems unlikely, I think it is a great idea personally.
11134078

I think too much money is involved for something like this to work without evasions here, evasions, there. In short, the same story in a new staging. To get rid or corruption in intercollegiate athletics you have to get rid of intercollegiate athletics
SophieMerry

I’m not sure of the connection between Ohio State football and “higher education.”
jodwho

From my experience it does not make much sense for American universities to build branches overseas. Like branches in this country, they are not going to offer a strong program above the first two years at most. In addition, the branches overseas do little to infuse global influences into the main campus. There are much better ways to globalize for much less.

For African countries, it seems to me that meaningful partnerships (especially cooperation at the disciplinary level) with local universities can have much more impact on a country’s educational system. Also, my impression is that overseas branches of developed country universities are a second best option for students from families who can afford to go to universities in developed countries. These students want the living environment of a developed country as well as the education. Thus, with a few exceptions like maybe South Africa, most African countries are going to have to finance the tuition of locals who attend branches of foreign institutions. That can be expensive, and unlikely to be a sustainable item in the government’s education budget in the long run. In short, foreign branches in Africa (except for for-profits from south Asia) is an idea whose time has not come and will not in the foreseeable future….John D. Holm
sand6432

John Rawls may have taken 21 years to complete his “Theory of Justice,” but he published a steady stream of seminal articles along the way, such as “Justice as Fairness.” I know because as a junior acquiring editor at Princeton University Press in the late 1960s, I approached Rawls about collecting these papers into a volume. I persuaded some other distinguished philosophers with a Princeton connection to do this, among them Joel Feinberg, Stuart Hampshire, and Gregory Vlastos. But Rawls demurred, saying he didn’t want to take any time away from completing his magnum opus. By the way, a few years earlier, in the fall of 1965, I was a fellow grad student with Derek Parfit in a course that Feinberg taught at Columbia University on the theory of responsibility. It was a marvel to behold Feinberg and Parfit debating fine points of morality in this seminar, and I could predict then that Parfit would have a brilliant career.—Sandy Thatcher
22058726

Yes, tvalderr, I was wondering the same thing. Why was this particular game selected for the study? There would seem to be a lot of other games that meet the criteria of making one “pay attention to a moving focus of action, and different details at different points on the screen.”
MarjoryMunson

This is definitely a valuable field for research – and I believe that doing it without the violence factor is possible. I had a small stroke on February 1, 2011. There were very few effects lingering after a few days, but there were some – more apparent to me than to others. One was what I would call a latency of memory – when I tried to recall something, there was just the slightest delay – as if it had to take a detour rather than the shortest route – which is probably a pretty accurate description. However, I would consciously note these instances and I pushed myself to do things that required such recall. It seemed as though I could almost feel my brain rewiring itself so that the delays shrank to almost no time.